HAPPY ENGLAND
"In the old time every Wood and Grove, Field and Meadow, Hill and
Cave, Sea and River, was tenanted by tribes and communities of the
great Fairy Family, and at least one of its members was a resident
in every House and Homestead where the kindly virtues of charity
and hospitality were practised and cherished. This was the faith of
our forefathers--a graceful, trustful faith, peopling the whole
earth with beings whose mission was to watch over and protect all
helpless and innocent things, to encourage the good, to comfort the
forlorn, to punish the wicked, and to thwart and subdue the
overbearing."--ANON, _The Fairy Family_, 1857.
"It is very much better to believe in a number of gods than in none
at all."--W. B. YEATS.
It is generally supposed that the site of London has been in continuous
occupation since that remote period when the flint-knappers chipped
their implements at Gray's Inn, and the pile-dwelling communities, whose
traces have been found in the neighbourhood of London Stone, drove their
first stakes into the surrounding marshes. Not only are there in London
the material evidences of antediluvian occupation, but "the fact remains
that in the city of London there are more survivals from past history
than can be found within the compass of any other British city, or of
any other area in Britain."[593]
Sir Laurence Gomme assigns some importance to the place-name "Britaine
Street"--now "Little Britain"--where, according to Stow, the Earls of
Britain were lodged, but it is probable that in _Up_well, _Eb_gate,
_Ab_church, _Ape_church or _Up_church, we may identify relics of an
infinitely greater antiquity.
When Cæsar paid his flying visit to these islands he learned at the
mouth of the Thames that what he terms an _oppidum_ or stronghold of the
British was not far distant, and that a considerable number of men and
cattle were there assembled. As it has been maintained that London was
the stronghold here referred to, the term _oppidum_ may possibly have
been a British word, Cæsar's testimony being: "_The Britons apply_ the
name of _oppidum_ to any woodland spot difficult to access, and
fortified with a rampart and trench to which they are in the habit of
resorting in order to escape a hostile raid".[594] That the _dum_ of
_oppidum_ was equivalent to _dun_ is manifest from the place-name
Dumbarton, which was originally Dunbrettan.
In view of the natural situation of St. Alban's there is a growing
opinion among archæologists that London, and not St. Alban's, was the
stronghold which stood the shock of Roman conquest when Cæsar took the
_oppidum_ of Cassivellaunus.
The inscriptions EP, EPPI, and IPPI figure frequently on British coins,
and there were probably local hobby stones, hobby towns, and _oppi duns_
in the tribal centre of every settlement of hobby-horse worshippers. In
Durham is Hoppyland Park, near Bridgewater is Hopstone, near Yarmouth is
Hopton, and Hopwells; and Hopwood's, Happy Valley's, Hope Dale's, Hope
Point's, Hopgreen's, Hippesley's and Apsley's may be found in numerous
directions. It is noteworthy that none of these terms can have had any
relation to the hop plant, for the word _hops_ is not recorded until the
fifteenth century; nor, speaking generally, have they any direct
connection with _hope_, meaning "the point of the low land mounting the
hill whence the top can be seen".[595]
The word _hope_, meaning expectation, is in Danish _haab_, in German
_hoffe_: Hopwood, near Hopton, is at Alvechurch (Elf Church?), apart
from which straw one would be justified in the assumption that Hop, Hob,
or Hoph, where it occurs in place-names, had originally reference to
Hob-with-a-canstick, _alias_ Hop-o'-my-Thumb. The Hebrew expression for
the witch of Endor, consulted by King Saul, is _ob_ or _oub_, but in
Deuteronomy xviii. 11, the term _oph_ is used to denote a familiar
spirit.[596] As we find a reference in Shakespeare to "urchins,
_ouphes_, and fairies," the English ouphes would seem to have been one
of the orders of the Elphin realm: the authorities equate it with _alph_
or _alp_, and the word has probably survived in the decadence of
Kipling's "muddied _oaf_".
Offa, the proper name, is translated by the dictionaries as meaning
_mild_, _gentle_: it is further remarkable that the root _oph_, _op_, or
_ob_, is very usually associated with things diminutive and small. In
Welsh _of_ or _ov_ means "atoms, first principles";[597] in French
_oeuf_, in Latin _ova_, means an egg; the little egg-like berry of the
hawthorn is termed a _hip_; to _ebb_ is to diminish, and in S.W.
Wiltshire is "a _small_ river," named the Ebbe. Hob, with his flickering
candlestick, or the homely Hob crouching on the hob, seems rarely to
have been thought of otherwise than as the child Elf, such as that
superscribed EP upon the British coin here illustrated: yet to the
_ub_iquitous Hob may no doubt be assigned _up_, which means aloft or
overhead, and _hoop_, the symbol of the Sun or Eye of Heaven.
[Illustration: FIG. 313.--British. From Akerman.]
Within and all around the _oppida_ the military and sacerdotal hubbub
was undoubtedly at times uproarious, and the vociferation used on these
occasions may account for the word _hubbub_,[598] a term which according
to Skeat was "imitative". This authority adds to his conjecture:
"formerly also _whoobub_, a confused noise. Hubbub was confused with
_hoop-hoop_, re-duplication of _hoop_ and _whoobub_ with _whoop-hoop_."
But even had our ancestors mingled _hip! hip!_ in their muddled minds
even then the confusion would have been excusable.
_Ope_, when occurring in proper-names such as Panope or Europe, is
usually translated Eye--thus, Panope as _Universal Eye_, and Europa as
_Broad Eye_. The small red eye-like or optical berries of the hawthorn
are termed _hips_ or haws, and it is probable that once upon a time the
hips were deemed the elphin eyes of Hob, the Ubiquitous or Everywhere.
In India the favourite bead in rosaries is the seed named _rudraksha_,
which means "the Eye of the god Rudra or S'iva": Rudra, or the _ruddy
one_, is the Hub or centre of the Hindoo pantheon, and S'iva, his more
familiar name (now understood to mean "kindly, gracious, or propitious")
is more radically "dear little Iva or Ipha". In India millions of S'eva
stones are still worshipped, and the _rudraksha_ seeds or Eyes of S'iva
are generally cut with eleven facets,[599] evidently symbolising the
eleven Beings which are said to have sprung from the dual
personalities--male and female--of the Creative Principle.
_Epine_, the French for thorn, is ultimately akin to Hobany, and _hip_
may evidently be equated with the friendly Hob. According to Bryant Hip
or Hipha was a title of the Phoenician Prime Parent, and it is
probable that our _Hip! Hip! Hip!_--the parallel of the Alban _Albani!
Albani!_--long antedated the _Hurrah!_
The Hobdays and the Abdys of Albion may be connoted with _Good Hob_, and
that this Robin Goodfellow or benevolent elf was the personification of
shrewdness and cunning is implied by _apt_ and in_ept_, and that happy
little Hob was considered to be pretty is implied by _hübsch_, the
Teutonic for _pretty_: the word _pretty_ is essentially _British_, and
the piratical habits of the early British are brought home to them by
the word _pirate_. We shall, however, subsequently see that _pirates_
originally meant "attempters" or men who _tried_.
The surname Hepburn argues the existence at some time of a Hep bourne
or brook; in Northumberland is Hepborne or Haybourne, which the
authorities suppose meant "burn, brook, with the hips, the fruit of the
wild rose": but hips must always have been as ubiquitous and plentiful
as sparrows. In Yorkshire is Hepworth, anciently written Heppeword, and
this is confidently interpreted as meaning _Farm of Heppo_: in view,
however, of our hobby-horse festivals, it is equally probable that in
the Hepbourne the Kelpie, the water horse, or _hippa_ was believed to
lurk, and one may question the historic reality of farmer Heppo.
The hobby horse was principally associated with the festivals of
May-Day, but it also figured at Yule Tide. On Christmas Eve either a
wooden horse head or a horse's skull was decked with ribbons and carried
from door to door on the summit of a pole supported by a man cloaked
with a sheet: this figure was known as "Old Hob":[600] in Welsh _hap_
means fortune--either good or bad.
Apparently the last recorded instance of the Hobby-Horse dance occurred
at Abbot's Bromley, on which occasion a man carrying the image of a
horse between his legs, and armed with a bow and arrow (the emblems of
Barry the Sovereign Archer), played the part of Hobby: with him were six
companions wearing reindeer heads (the emblems of the Dayspring) who
danced the hey and other ancient dances. Tollett supposes the famous
hobby horse to be the King of the May "though he now appears as a
juggler and a buffoon with a crimson foot-cloth fretted with gold, the
golden bit, the purple bridle, and studded with gold, the man's purple
mantle with a golden border which is latticed with purple, his golden
crown, purple cap with a red feather, and with a golden knop".[601]
[Illustration: FIGS. 314 to 317.--British. From Akerman.]
[Illustration: FIG. 318.--British. From Camden.]
[Illustration: FIG. 319.--Head Dress of the King (N.W. Palace
Nimroud). From _Nineveh_ (Layard).]
A _knop_ or _knob_ means a boss, protuberance, or rosebud--originally,
of course, a wild rosebud which precedes the hip--and it is probably the
same word as the CUNOB which occurs so frequently in British coins. In
Fig. 314 CUNOB occurs alone, and I am not sure that Figs. 315 and 318
should not be read ELINI CUNOB. The knob figured not only on our Hobby
Horse, but also as a symbol on the head-dress of Tyrian kings, and there
is very little doubt that the charming small figure on the obverse of
CUNOB ELINI is intended for King Ob, or Ep. There is a Knap Hill at
Avebury, a Knapton in Yorkshire, and a Knapwell in Suffolk: Knebworth
in Herts was Chenepenorde in Domesday, and the imaginary farmer Cnapa or
Cnebba, to whom these place-names are assigned, may be equated with the
afore-mentioned farmer Heppo of Hepworth.
Knaves Castle (Lichfield), now a small mound--a _heap_?--is ascribed to
"_cnafa_, a boy or servant, later a knave, a rogue": Cupid is a
notorious little rogue, nevertheless, proverbially Love makes the world
go round, and constitutes its nave, navel, hub, or boss: with _snob_
Skeat connotes _snopp_, meaning a boy or anything _stumpy_.
In course of time like _boss_, Dutch _baas_, _knob_ seems to have been
applied generally to mean a lord or master, and the Londoner who takes
an agreeable interest in the "nobs"[602](and occasional _snobs_) riding
in Hyde Park is possibly following an ancestral custom dating from the
time when the Ring was originally constructed. Apsley House, now
standing at the east end of Rotten Row, occupies the site of the park
ranger's lodge, the Ranger was a highly important personage, and it is
not improbable that the site of Apsley House was once known as Ap's lea
or meadow. The immediately adjacent Stanhope Gate and Stanhope Street,
or Stanhope in Durham, may mark the site of a stone hippa or horse
similar to the famous stone horse in Brittany upon which--I believe to
this day--women superstitiously seat themselves with the same purpose as
they sit upon the Brahan stone in Ireland: Bryanstone Square in London
is not more than a mile from Stanhope Street and Apsley House.
[Illustration: FIG. 320.--La Venus de Quinipily, near Baud Morbihan,
Brittany. From _Symbolism of the East and West_
(Aynsley, Mrs. Murray).]
The Breton statue of Quinipily may be deemed a portrait of _holy Queen
Ip_, and Gwennap, near Redruth, where is a famous amphitheatre, was
probably a Queen Hip lea or seat of the same Queen's worship.
Gwen Ap was presumably the same as Queen Aph or Godiva, the Lady of the
White Horse, and Godrevy on the opposite side of St. Ives Bay may be
equated with _Good rhi Evy_, or Good Queen Evie. A few miles from
Liskeard there is a village named St. Ive, which the natives pronounce
_St. Eve_: the more western, better-known Saint Ive's, is mentioned in a
document of 1546 as "Seynt Iysse," and what apparently is this same
dedication reappears at a place four miles west of Wadebridge termed St.
Issey. "Whose name is it," inquires W. C. Borlase, "that the parish of
St. Issey bears?" He suggests somewhat wildly that it may be the same as
Elidius, corrupted to Liddy, Ide, or Idgy, endeavouring to prove that
this Elidius is the same as the great Welsh Teilo.
It would be simpler and more reasonable to assume that St. Issey is a
trifling corruption of "Eseye," which was one of the titles of the old
British Mother of Life. The goddess Esseye--alternatively and better
known as Keridwen--is described by Owen in his _Cambrian Biography_ as
"a female personage, in the mythology of the Britons considered as _the
first of womankind_, having nearly the same attributes with Venus, in
whom are personified the generative powers".
With Eseye and with St. Issey, _alias_ St. Ive, may be connoted the
deserted town of Hesy in Judea: on the mound now known as Tell el Hesy,
or the hill town of Hesy, the remains of at least eight super-imposed
prehistoric cities have been excavated, and among the discoveries on
this site was a limestone lampstand subscribed on the base
APHEBAL.[603] The winged maiden found at the same time is essentially
Cretan, and it is not an unreasonable assumption that on this _Aphe_
fragment of pottery from Hesy we have a contemporary portrait of the
Candian Aphaia or Britomart, _alias_ Hesy, or St. Issy, or St. Ive: the
British Eseye was alternatively known as Cendwen.
[Illustration: FIG. 321.--From _A Mound of Many Cities_
(Bliss, J. B.).]
[Illustration: FIG. 322.--From _A Mound of Many Cities_
(Bliss, J. B.).]
The British built their _oppida_ not infrequently in the form of an eye
or optic, and also of an oeuf, ova, or egg. The perfect symmetry of
these designs point conclusively to the probability that the earthworks
were not mere strongholds scratched together anyhow for mere defence:
the British burial places or barrows were similarly either circular or
oval, and that the Scotch dun illustrated in Fig. 324 was British, is
implied not only by its name Boreland-Mote, but by its existence at a
place named Parton, this word, like the Barton of Dumbarton, no doubt
signifying Dun Brettan or Briton.
[Illustration: FIG. 323.--From _The Motes of Kirkcudbrightshire_
(Coles, F. R.). (Soc. Antiq. Scot.).]
[Illustration: FIG. 324.--From _The Motes of Kirkcudbrightshire_
(Coles, F. R.). (Soc. Antiq. Scot.)]
[Illustration: FIG. 325.--"Spindle-whorls" from Troy. From
_Prehistoric London_ (Gordon, E. O.).
[_To face page 534._]
Egypt was known as "The Land of the Eye":[604] the amulet of the
All-seeing Eye was perhaps even more popular in Egypt than in Etruria,
and the mysterious and unaccountable objects called "spindle whorls,"
which occur so profusely in British tombs, and which also have been
found in countless numbers underneath Troy, were probably Eye amulets,
rudely representative of the human iris. The Trojan examples here
illustrated are conspicuously decorated with the British _Broad_ Arrow,
which is said to have been the symbol of the Awen or Holy Spirit. In
their accounts of the traditional symbols, speech, letters, and signs of
Britain, according to their preservation by means of memory, voice, and
usages of the Chair and Gorsedd, the Welsh Bards asserted that the three
strokes of the Broad Arrow or bardic hieroglyph for God originated from
three diverging rays of light seen descending towards the earth. Out of
these three strokes were constituted all the letters of the bardic
alphabet, the three strokes / | \ reading in these characters
respectively 0 1 0, and thus spelling the mystic OHIO or YEW; hence it
would seem that this never-to-be-pronounced Name[605] was a faerie
conception originating in the mind of some primitive poet philosophising
from a cloud-encumbered sunrise or sunset. According to tradition there
were five ages of letters: "The first was the age of the three letters,
which above all represented the Name of God, and which were a sign of
Goodness and Truth, and Understanding and Equity, of whatsoever kind
they might be".[606] On these rays, it is said, were inscribed every
kind and variety of Science and Knowledge, and on His return to Heaven
the Almighty Architect is described as--
Followed with acclamation, and the sound
Symphonious of ten thousand harps that tun'd
Angelic harmonies.
The philosophers of Egypt believed that the universe was created by the
pronunciation of the divine name; similarly the British bards taught
that: "The universe is matter as ordered and systematised by the
intelligence of God. It was created by God's pronouncing His own
name--at the sound of which light and the heavens sprang into existence.
The name of God is itself a creative power. What in itself that name is,
is known to God only. All music or natural melody is a faint and broken
echo of the creative name."[607]
Everywhere and in everything the Druids recognised this celestial
Trinity: not only did their Hierarchy consist of three orders, _i.e._,
Druids, Bards, and Seers, each group being again subdivided into three,
but also, as we have seen, they uttered their Triads or aphorisms in
triple form. There is little doubt that the same idea animated the
Persian philosophy of Good Thought, Good Deed, Good Word, and Micah's
triple exordium: "Do justly, love mercy, walk humbly". The bards say
distinctly: "The three mystic letters signify the three attributes of
God, namely, Love, Knowledge, and Truth, and it is out of these three
that justice springs, and without one of the three there can be no
justice".[608]
This is a simpler philosophy than the incomprehensibilities of the
Athanasian Creed,[609] and it was seemingly drilled with such living and
abiding force into the minds of the Folk, that even to-day the Druidic
Litanies or Chants of the Creed still persist. Throughout Italy and
Sicily the Chant of the Creed is known as The Twelve Words of Verita or
Truth, and it is generally put into the mouth of the popular Saint
Nicholas of _Bari_.[610] The Sicilian or Hyperean festival of the Bara
has already been noted _ante_, p. 320.
The British chant quoted _ante_, page 373, continues: "What will be our
three boys"? "What will be our four"? five? six? and onwards up to
twelve, but always the refrain is--
My only ain she walks alane
And ever mair has dune, boys.
[Illustration: FIG. 326.--St. John. From _Christian Iconography_
(Didron).]
[Illustration: FIG. 327.--Christ, with a Nimbus of Three Clusters of
Rays. Miniature of the XVI. Cent. MS. of the Bib.
Royale. _Ibid._]
In Irish mythology we are told that the Triad similarly "infected
everything," hence Trinities such as Oendia (the one god), Caindea (the
gentle god), and Trendia (the mighty god): other accounts specify the
three children of the Boyne goddess, as Tear Bringer, Smile Bringer, and
Sleep Bringer: the word _sleep_ is in all probability a corruption of
_sil Eep_.
Among the Trojan "spindle whorls" some are decorated with four awens,
corresponding seemingly to the Four Kings of the Wheel of Fortune;
others with three groups constituting a total of nine strokes. As each
ray represented a form of Truth, the number nine--which as already
noted is invariably true to itself--was essentially the symbol of Truth,
and that this idea was absorbed by Christianity is obvious from
representations such as Figs. 326 and 327.
[Illustration: FIG. 328.--"Cross" at Sancreed (Cornwall). From _The
Cornish Riviera_ (Stone, J. Harris).
[_To face page 538._ ]
[Illustration: FIG. 329.--Caerbrân Castle in Sancred. From
_Antiquities of Cornwall_ (Borlase).]
[Illustration: FIGS. 330 and 331.--British. From Evans.]
At Sancreed in Cornwall--supposedly a dedication to the holy
Creed--there is a remarkable "cross" which is actually a holed stone on
a shank:[611] and in the same parish is a "castle" which was once
evidently a very perfect Eye. In the Scilly Islands, lying within a
stone circle, is what might be a millstone with a square hole in its
centre: this Borlase ranks among the holed stones of Cornwall, and that
it was a symbol of the Great Eye is a reasonable inference from the name
Salla Key where it is still lying. We have seen the symbolic Eye on the
KIO coin illustrated _ante_, page 253; the word _eye_ pronounced
frequently _oy_ and _ee_, is the same as the _hey_ of _Heydays_ and the
Shepherds' Dance or _Hey_, hence in all probability Salla Key or Salakee
Downs[612] were originally sacred to the festivals of _Sala Kee_,
_i.e._, silly, innocent, or happy, '_Kee_ or _Great Eye_. The old plural
of _eye_ was _eyen_ or _een_, and it is not unlikely that the primeval
Ian, John, or Sinjohn, was worshipped as the joint Sun and Moon, or Eyes
of Day and Night. On the hobby-horse coins here illustrated, the body
consists of two curiously conspicuous circles or _eyen_, possibly
representing the _awen_.
My only _ane_ she walks alane
And ever mair has dune, boys.
On Salla Key Downs is Inisidgen Hill, which takes its name from an
opposite island: in old MSS. this appears as _Enys au geon_, which the
authorities assume meant "Island of St. John". _Geon_, however, was the
Cornish for _giant_; on Salla Key Downs is "Giant's Castle," and close
at hand is the Giant's Chair: this is a solid stone worked into the form
of an arm-chair: "It looks like a work of art rather than nature, and,
according to tradition, it was here the Arch Druid was wont to sit and
watch the rising Sun".[613] The neighbouring island of Great Ganilly was
thus in all probability sacred to _Geon_, the Great King, or Queen Holy.
The Saints' days, heydays, and holidays of our predecessors seem to have
been so numerous that the wonder is that there was ever any time to
work: apparently from such evidence as the Bean-setting dance, even the
ancient sowing was accomplished to the measure of a song, and the
festivities in connection with old Harvest Homes are too multifarious
and familiar to need comment.
The attitude of the clergy towards these ancient festivals seems to have
been uniform and consistent.
These teach that dancing is a Jezebel,
And barley-break the ready way to hell;
The morrice-idols, Whitsun-ales, can be
But profane relics of a jubilee.[614]
One of the greatest difficulties of the English Church was to suppress
the dancing which the populace--supported by immemorial custom--insisted
upon maintaining, even within the churches and the churchyards. Even
to-day English churches possess reindeer heads and other paraphernalia
of archaic feasts, and in Paris, as recently as the seventeenth century,
the clergy and singing boys might have been seen dancing at Easter in
the churches.[615] In Cornwall on the road from Temple to Bradford
Bridge is a stone circle known as The Trippet Stones, and doubtless many
churches occupy the sites of similar places where from time immemorial
the Folk tripped it jubilantly on jubilees: custom notoriously dies
hard.
In the Eastern counties of England the two principal reapers were known
as the Harvest Lord and Lady, who presided over the Hoppings, and other
festivities of the season. Sometimes the Harvest Lady was known as the
Hop Queen,[616] and this important potentate may be connoted with the
harvest doll which, in Kent particularly, was termed the Ivy Girl. As
Prof. Weekley connotes the surname Hoppe with Hobbs, Hobson, and
Hopkins, we may infer from the name _Hopkin_son, there must once have
been a Hop King as well as a Hop Queen, and the rôle of this English
Hopkin was probably similar to that enacted by other Jack-in-Greens,
King-of-the-Years, or Spirit-of-the-Years. The pomp and circumstance of
the parallel of the Hopkin ceremony in Greece may be judged from the
following particulars: "They wreathe," says Plato, "a pole of olive wood
with laurel and various flowers. On the top is fitted a bronze globe
from which they suspend smaller ones. Midway round the pole they place a
lesser globe, binding it with purple fillets, but the end of the pole is
decked with saffron. By the topmost globe they mean the sun, to which
they actually compare Apollo. The globe beneath this is the moon; the
smaller globes hung on are the stars and constellations, and the fillets
are the course of the year, for they make them 365 in number. The
Daphnephoria is headed by a boy, both whose parents are alive, and his
nearest male relation carries the filleted pole. The Laurel-Bearer
himself, who follows next, holds on to the laurel; he has his hair
hanging loose, he wears a golden wreath, and he is dressed out in a
splendid robe to his feet and he wears light shoes. There follows him a
band of maidens holding out boughs before them, to enforce the
supplication of the hymns."[617]
With this Greek festival of the Laurel-Bearer may be connoted the "one
traditional dance connected with all our old festivals and merry
makings" in Guernsey, and known as _A mon beau Laurier_. In this
ceremony the dancers join hands, whirl round, curtsey, and kiss a
central object, in later days either a man or a woman, but, in the
opinion of Miss Carey, "perhaps originally either a sacred stone or a
primeval altar".[618] Adulation of this character is calculated to
create _snobs_, the word as we have seen being fundamentally connected
with _stump_. I have already suggested a connection between the
salutation _A mon beau Laurier_ and the kissing or bussing of Paul's
stump at Billingsgate, which is situated almost immediately next Ebgate.
On Mount Hube, in Jersey, have been found the remains of a supposed
Druidic temple, and doubtless Mount _Hube_, like Apechurch or Abechurch,
was a primitive Hopeton, _oppidum_, or Abbey.
[Illustration: FIG. 332.--From _The Everyday Book_ (Hone, W.).]
[Illustration: FIG. 333.--From _The Everyday Book_ (Hone, W.).]
The Hoop is a frequent inn sign generally associated with some
additional symbol such as is implied in the familiar old signs,
Swan-on-the-Hoop, Cock-on-the-Hoop, Crown-on-the-Hoop,
Angel-on-the-Hoop, Falcon-on-the Hoop, and
Bunch-of-Grapes-on-the-Hoop.[619] That the hoop or circle was a sacred
form need not be laboured, for the majority of our megalithic monuments
are circular, and there is no doubt that these rude circles are not
simply and solely "adjuncts of stone age burials," but were the
primitive temples of the Hoop Lady or Fairy Queen. It was customary to
represent the Hop Lady within hoops or wheels; and that the Virgin was
regarded indifferently as either One, Two, Three or Four is clear from
the indeterminate number of dolls which served on occasion as the idola
or ideal. In Irish _oun_ or _ain_ means the cycle or course of the
seasons, and the great Queen Anu or Aine who was regarded as the boss,
hub, or centre of the Mighty Wheel may be equated with Una, the Fairy
Queen.
The Druids are said to have considered it impious to enclose or cover
their temples, presumably for the same reasons as prevailed among the
Persians. These are explained by Cicero who tells us that in the
expedition of Xerxes into Greece all the Grecian temples were destroyed
at the instigation of the Magi because the Grecians were so impious as
to enclose those gods within walls who ought to have all things around
them open and free, their temple being the universal world. In Homer's
time--
On rough-hewn stones within the sacred cirque
Convok'd the hoary sages sat.
and there is little doubt that similarly in these islands the
priest-chiefs held their solemn and ceremonial sessions.
The word Druid is in disfavour among modern archæologists; nevertheless,
apparently all over Britain the Druids were traditionally associated in
the popular memory with megalithic monuments. Martin, in the relation of
his Tour of the Hebrides, made in the middle of the eighteenth century,
observes: "In the Western Islands where there are many, what are called
by the common people _Druin Crunny_, that is Druids' Circles," and the
same observer recounts: "I inquired of the inhabitants what tradition
they had concerning these stones, and they told me it was a place
appointed for worship in the time of heathenism, and that the chief
Druid stood near the big stone in the centre from whence he addressed
himself to the people that surrounded him".[620]
There is presumptive and direct evidence that the stone circles of
Britain served the combined uses of Temple, Sepulchre, Place of
Assembly, and Law Court. The custom of choosing princes by nobles
standing in a circle upon rocks, prevailed until comparatively recent
times, and Edmund Spenser, writing in 1596 on the State of Ireland, thus
described an installation ceremony: "One of the Lords arose and holding
in his hand a white wand perfectly straight and without the slightest
bend, he presented it to the chieftain-elect with the following words,
'Receive the emblematic wand of thy dignity, now let the unsullied
whiteness and straightness of this wand be thy model in all thy acts, so
that no calumnious tongue can expose the slightest stain on the purity
of thy life, nor any favoured friend ever seduce thee from dealing out
even-handed justice to all'."[621]
The white wand figuring in this ceremony is evidently the magic rod or
fairy wand with which the Elphin Queen is conventionally equipped, and
which was figured in the hand of the Cretan "Hob," _ante_, page 494.
Sometimes in lieu of a centre stone the circles contained stone chairs.
Many of these old Druidic thrones have been broken up into gate-posts or
horse-troughs, but several are still in existence, and some are
decorated with a carving of two footprints. These two footprints were in
all probability one of the innumerable forms in which the perennial Pair
were represented, _vide_ the Vedic invocation: "Like two lips speaking
sweetly to the mouth, like two breasts feed us that we may live. Like
two nostrils as guardians of the body, like two ears be inclined to
listen to us. Like two hands holding our strength together ... like two
hoofs rushing in quickly," etc.
In the British coin here illustrated the Giant Pair are featured as
joint steeds: "Coming early like two heroes on their chariots ... ye
bright ones every day come hither like two charioteers, O ye strong
ones! Like two winds, like two streams your motion is eternal; like _two
eyes_[622] come with your sight toward us! Like two hands most useful to
the body; _like two feet_ lead us towards wealth."[623]
[Illustration: FIG. 334.--British. From Akerman.]
Occasionally the two footprints are found cut into simple rock: in
Scotland the King of the Isles used to be crowned at Islay, standing on
a stone with a deep impression on the top of it made on purpose to
receive his feet. The meaning of the feet symbol in Britain is not
known, but Scotch tradition maintained that it represented the size of
the feet of Albany's first chieftain. On Adam's Peak in Ceylon (ancient
_Tafrobani_) there is a super-sacred footprint which is still the goal
of millions of devout pilgrims, and on referring to India where the foot
emblem is familiar we find it explained as very ancient, and used by the
Buddhists in remembrance of their great leader Buddha. In the tenth
century a Hindu poet sang:--
In my heart I place the feet
The Golden feet of God.
and it would thus seem that the primeval Highlander anticipated by many
centuries Longfellow's trite lines on great men, happily, however,
before departing, graving the symbolic footprints of his "first
Chieftain," not upon the sands of Time, but on the solid rocks.
The Ancients, believing that God was centred in His Universe, a point
within a circle was a proper and expressive hieroglyph for Pan or All.
The centre stone of the rock circles probably stood similarly for God,
and the surrounding stones for the subsidiary Principalities and Powers
thus symbolising the idea: "Thou art the Eternal One, in whom all order
is centred; Lord of all things visible and invisible, Prince of mankind,
Protector of the Universe".[624] A tallstone or a longstone is
physically and objectively the figure one, 1.
If it were possible to track the subsidiary Powers of the Eternal One to
their inception we should, I suspect, find them to have been
personifications of Virtues, and this would seem to apply not merely to
such familiar Trinities as Faith, Hope, and Charity; Good Thought, Good
Deed, and Good Word, but to quartets, quintets, sextets, and septets
such as the Seven Kings or Seven Gifts of the Holy Spirit, _i.e._, "Ye
gifte of wisdome; ye gifte of pittie; ye gifte of strengthe; ye gifte of
comfaite; ye gifte of understandinge; ye gifte of counyinge; ye gifte of
dreede".
The Persian Trinity of Thought, Deed, and Word, is perfectly expressed
in the three supposed Orders of the Christian hierarchy. As stated in
_The Golden Legend_ these are--sovereign Love as touching the order of
Seraphim, perfect Knowledge, and perpetual Fruition or usance. "There be
some," continues De Voragine, "that overcome and dominate over all vices
in themselves, and they by right be called of the world, gods among
men."[625]
It is related of King Arthur that he carried a shield named Prydwen, and
if the reader will trouble to count the dots ranged round the centre
boss of the shield on page 120 the number will be found to be _eleven_.
At Kingston on Thames, where the present market stone is believed to be
the surviving centre-piece of a stone-circle, a brass ring ornamented
with _eleven_ bosses was discovered.[626] In Etruria _eleven_ mystic
shields were held in immense veneration:[627] it will further be noted
that the majority of the wheatears on British and Celtiberian coins
consist of _eleven_ corns.
The word _eleven_, like its French equivalent _onze_, _ange_, or
_angel_, points to the probability that for some reason eleven was
essentially the number sacred to the _elven_, _anges_, or _onzes_.
Elphinstone, a fairly common surname, implies the erstwhile existence of
many Elphinstones: there is an Alphian rock in Yorkshire; bronze urns
have been excavated at Alphamstone in Essex, and the supposititious
Aelfin, to whom the Alphington in Exeter is attributed, was far more
probably Elphin.
The dimensions of many so-called longstones--whether solitary or in the
centres of circles--point to the probability that menhirs or
standing-stones were frequently and preferably 11 feet high. In
Cornwall alone I have noted the following examples of which the
measurements are extracted from _The Victoria County History_. The
longstone at Trenuggo, Sancreed, now measures 11 feet 2 inches; that at
Sithney 11 feet; that at Burras "about 10 feet," that at Parl 12 feet;
and that at Bosava 10 feet. In the parish of St. Buryan the longstones
standing at Pridden, Goon Rith, Boscawen Ros, and Trelew, now measure
respectively 11 feet 6 inches, 10 feet 6 inches, 10 feet, and 10 feet 4
inches.
If one takes into account such casualties of time as weathering, washing
away of subsoil, upcrop of undergrowth, subsidence, and other accidents,
the preceding figures are somewhat presumptive that each of the
monuments in question was originally designed to stand 11 feet high.
Frequently a circle of stones is designated The Nine Maids, or The
Virgin Sisters, or The Merry Maidens. The Nine Maidens is suggestive of
the Nine Muses, and of the nine notorious Druidesses, which dwelt upon
the Island of Sein in Brittany. The Merry Maidens may be equated with
the Fairy or Peri Maidens, and that this phairy theory holds good
likewise in Spain is probable from the fact that at Pau there is a
circle of nine stones called La Naou _Peyros_.[628]
"When we inquired," says Keightley, "after the fairy system in Spain, we
were told that there was no such thing for that the Inquisition had long
since eradicated such ideas." He adds, however, "we must express our
doubt of the truth of this charge": I concur that not even the
Inquisition was capable of carrying out such fundamental destruction as
the obliteration of all peyros. Probably the old plural for peri or
fairy was _peren_ or _feren_, in which case the great Fernacre circle in
the parish of St. Breward, Cornwall, was presumably the sacred eye or
hoop of some considerable neighbourhood. About 160 feet eastward of
Fernacre (which is one of the largest circles in Cornwall), and in line
with the summit of _Brown_ Willy (the highest hill in Cornwall) is a
small erect stone. The neighbouring Row Tor (_Roi_ Tor or _Rey_ Tor?)
rises due north of Fernacre circle, and as the editors of _Cornwall_
point out: "If as might appear probable this very exact alignment north
and south, east and west, was intentional, and part of a plan where
Fernacre was the pivot of the whole, it is a curious feature that the
three circles mentioned should have been so effectively hidden from each
other by intervening hills".[629]
The major portion of this district is the property of an Onslow family;
there is an Onslow Gardens near Alvastone Place in Kensington, and there
is a probability that every Alvastone, Elphinstone, or _On_slow
neighbourhood was believed to be inhabited by _Elven_ or _Anges_: it is
indeed due to this superstition that the relatively few megalithic
monuments which still exist have escaped damnation, the destruction
where it has actually occurred having been sometimes due to a deliberate
and bigoted determination, "to brave ridiculous legends and
superstitions".[630] Naturally the prevalent and protective
superstitions were fostered and encouraged by prehistoric thinkers for
the reasons doubtless quite rightly surmised by an eighteenth century
archæologist who wrote: "But the truth of the story is, it was a burying
place of the Britons before the calling in of the heathen sexton (_sic_
query _Saxon_) into this Kingdom. And this fable invented by the Britons
was to prevent the ripping up of the bones of their ancestors." The
demise of similar fables under the corrosive influence of modern kultur,
has involved the destruction of countless other stone-monuments, so that
even of Cornwall, their natural home, Mr. T. Quiller Couch was
constrained to write: "Within my remembrance the cromlech, the holy
well, the way-side cross and inscribed stone, have gone before the
utilitarian greed of the farmer and the road man, and the undeserved
neglect of that hateful being, the _cui bono_ man".
Parish Councils of to-day do not fear to commit vandalisms which private
individuals in the past shrank from perpetrating.[631] A Welsh
"Stonehenge" at Eithbed, Pembrokeshire, shown on large-scale Ordinance
maps issued last century, has disappeared from the latest maps of the
district, and a few years ago an archæologist who visited the site
reported that the age-worn stones had been broken up to build ugly
houses close by--"veritable monuments of shame".
In the Isle of _Pur_beck near _Bourne_mouth, _Brank_sea, _Bronks_ea
(Bronk's _ea_ or island) _Branks_ome and numerous other _Bron_
place-names which imply that the district was once haunted by Oberon, is
a barrow called Puckstone, and on the top of this barrow, now thrown
down, is a megalith said to measure 10 feet 8 inches. In all probability
this was once 11 feet long, and was the Puckstone or Elphinstone of that
neighbourhood: near Anglesea at Llandudno is a famous longstone which
again is _eleven_ feet high.
In Glamorganshire there is a village known as Angel Town, and in
Pembroke is Angle or Nangle: Adamnan, in his _Life of Columba_, records
that the saint opened his books and "read them on the Hill of the
Angels, where once on a time the citizens of the Heavenly Country were
seen to descend to hold conversation with the blessed man". Upon this
his editor comments: "this is the knoll called 'great fairies hill'. Not
far away is the 'little fairies hill'. The fairies hills of pagan
mythology became angels hills in the minds of the early Christian
saints."[632] One may be permitted to question whether this
metamorphosis really occurred, and whether the idea of Anges or Angles
is not actually older than even the Onslows or _ange_ lows. The Irish
trinity of St. Patrick, St. Bride, and St. Columba, are said all to lie
buried in one spot at Dunence, and the place-name _Dunence_ seemingly
implies that that site was an _on's low_, or _dun ange_. The term
_angel_ is now understood to mean radically a messenger, but the primary
sense must have been deeper than this: in English _ingle_--as in
inglenook--meant _fire_, and according to Skeat it also meant a darling
or a paramour. Obviously _ingle_ is here the same word as _angel_, and
presumably the more primitive Englishman tactfully addressed his consort
as "mine ingle". The Gaelic and the Irish for fire is _aingeal_; we
have seen that the burnebee or ladybird was connected with fire, and
that similarly St. Barneby's Day was associated with Barnebee _Bright_:
hence the festival held at _Engle_wood, or _Ingle_wood (Cumberland)
yearly on the day of St. Barnabas would appear to have been a primitive
fire or _aingeal_ ceremony. It is described as follows: "At Hesket in
Cumberland yearly on St. Barnabas Day by the highway side under a Thorn
tree according to the very ancient manner of holding assemblies in the
open air, is kept the Court for the whole Forest of Englewood, the
'Englyssh wood' of the ballad of Adam Bel".[633]
Stonehenge used to be entitled Stonehengels, which may be modernised
into the _Stone Angels_,[634] each stone presumably standing as a
representative of one or other of the angelic hierarchy. When the Saxons
met the British in friendly conference at Stonehenge--apparently even
then the national centre--each Saxon chieftain treacherously carried a
knife which at a given signal he plunged into the body of his unarmed,
unsuspecting neighbour; subsequently, it is said, hanging the corpses of
the British royalties on the cross rocks of Stonehenge: hence ever after
this exhibition of Teutonic _realpolitik_ Stonehenge has been assumed to
mean the Hanging Stones, or Gallow Stones.[635] We find, however, that
Stonehenge was known as Sta_hengues_ or Est_anges_, a plural form which
may be connoted with Hengesdun or Hengston Hill in Cornwall: Stonehenge
also appears under the form Senhange, which may have meant either _Old
Ange_ or _San Ange_, and as the priests of ancient cults almost
invariably assumed the character and titles of their divinity it is
probable that the Druids were once known as _Anges_. In Irish the word
_aonge_ is said to have meant _magician_ or _sorcerer_, which is
precisely the character assigned by popular opinion to the Druids. In
_Rode hengenne_, another title of Stonehenge,[636] we have apparently
the older plural hen_gen_ with the adjectival _rood_ or _ruddy_, whence
Stonehenge would seem to have been a shrine of the Red Rood Anges.
[Illustration: FIG. 336.--Stonehenge. From _The Celtic Druids_
(Higgens, G.).]
As this monument was without doubt a national centre it is probable that
as I have elsewhere suggested Stonehenge meant also the _Stone Hinge_:
the word _cardinal_ means radically hinge; the original Roman cardinals
whose round red hats probably typified the ruddy sun, were the priests
of Janus, who was entitled the Hinge, and there is no reason to suppose
that the same idea was not equally current in England.
That the people of CARDIA associated their _angel_ or _ange_ with
_cardo_, a _hinge_ or _angle_ is manifest from the coin illustrated in
Fig. 336.
According to Prof. Weekley, "_Ing_, the name of a demi-god, seems to
have been early confused with the Christian _angel_ in the prefix
_Engel_ common in German names, _e.g._, Engelhardt anglicised as
_Engleheart_. In Anglo-Saxon we find both _Ing_ and _Ingel_. The modern
name Ingoll represents Ingweald (Ingold) and _Inglett_ is a diminutive
of similar origin. The cheerful _Inglebright_ is from Inglebeort. The
simple _Ing_ has given through Norse Ingwar the Scottish _Ivor_."[637]
But is it not possible that Ivor never came through Ingwar, but was
radically a synonym--_fairy_ = _Ing_, or _fire_ = _ingle_? Inga is a
Scandinavian maiden-name, and if the Inge family--of gloomy repute--are
unable to trace any cheerier origin it may be suggested that they came
from the Isle of Man where the folk claim to be the descendants of
fairies or anges: "The Manks confidently assert that the first
inhabitants of their island were fairies, and that these little people
have still their residence amongst them. They call them the 'Good
people,' and say they live in wilds and forests, and mountains, and shun
great cities because of the wickedness acted therein."[638]
As there is no known etymology for _inch_ and _ounce_ it is not
improbable that these diminutive measures were connected with the
popular idea of the _ange's_ size and weight: Queen Mab, according to
Shakespeare, was "no bigger than an agate stone on the forefinger of an
alderman," and she weighed certainly not more than an ounce. The origin
of Queen Mab is supposedly Habundia, or La Dame Abonde, discussed in a
preceding chapter, and there connoted with Eubonia, Hobany, and Hob: in
Welsh Mab means _baby boy_, and the priests of this little king were
known as the Mabinogi, whence the _Mabinogion_, or books of the
Mabinogi.
Whether there is any reason to connect the three places in Ireland
entitled Inchequin with the _Ange Queen_, or the Inchlaw (a hill in
Fifeshire) with the Inch Queen Mab I have had no opportunity of
inquiring.
The surnames Inch, Ince, and Ennis, are all usually connoted with _enys_
or _ins_, the Celtic and evidently more primitive form of _in_sula, an
island, _ea_ or _Eye_.
The Inge family may possibly have come from the Channel Islands or
_insulæ_, where as we have seen the Ange Queen, presumably the Lady of
the Isles or _inces_, was represented on the coinage, and the Lord of
the Channel Isles seems to have been Pixtil or _Pixy tall_. That this
_Pixy tall_ was alternatively _ange tall_ is possibly implied by the
name Anchetil, borne by the Vicomte du Bessin who owned one of the two
fiefs into which Guernsey was anciently divided. It will be remembered
that in the ceremony of the Chevauchee de St. Michel, _eleven_
Vavasseurs functioned in the festival; further, that the lance-bearer
carried a wand 11-1/4 feet long. The Welsh form of the name _Michael_ is
_Mihangel_, and as Michael was the Leader of all angels, the _mi_ of
this British mihangel may be equated with the Irish _mo_ which, as
previously noted, meant _greatest_.
As Albion or _albi en_, is the equivalent to Elphin or _elven_, it is
obvious that England--or _Inghil_terra, as some nations term it--is a
synonym for Albion, in both cases the meaning being Land of the Elves
or Angels. For some reason--possibly the Masonic idea of the right
angle, rectitude, and square dealing--_angle_ was connected with
_angel_, and in the coin here illustrated the angel has her head fixed
in a photographic pose by an angle. In Germany and Scandinavia,
Engelland means the mystic land of unborn souls, and that the Angles who
inhabited the banks of the _Elbe_ (Latin _Alva_) believed not only in
the existence of this spiritual Engelland, but also in the living
existence of Alps, Elves, Anges, or Angels is a well-recognised fact.
The Scandinavians traced their origin to a primal pair named Lif and
Lifthraser: according to Rydberg it was the creed of the Teuton that on
arriving with a good record at "the green worlds of the gods"; "Here he
finds not only those with whom he became personally acquainted while on
earth, but he may also visit and converse with ancestors from the
beginning of time, and he may hear the history of his race, nay, the
history of all past generations told by persons who were
eye-witnesses".[639] The fate of the evil-living Teuton was believed to
be far different, nevertheless, in sharp distinction to the Christian
doctrine that all unbaptised children are lost souls, and that infants
scarce a span in size might be seen crawling on the fiery floor of hell,
even the "dull and creeping Saxon" held that every one who died in
tender years was received into the care of a Being friendly to the
young, who introduced them into the happy groves of immortality.
[Illustration: FIG. 336.--Greek. From Barthelemy.]
The suggestion that the land of the Angels derived its title from the
angelic superstitions of the inhabitants, may be connoted with seemingly
a parallel case in Sweden, _i.e._, the province of Elfland. According to
Walter Scott this district "had probably its name from some remnant of
ancient superstition":[640] during the witch-finding mania of the
sixteenth century at one village alone in Elfland, upwards of 300
children "were found more or less perfect in a tale as full of
impossible absurdities as ever was told round a nursery fire". Fifteen
of these hapless little visionaries were led to death, and thirty-six
were lashed weekly at the church doors for a whole year: an unprofitable
"conspiracy" for the poor little "plotters"!
[Illustration: FIG. 337.--From _Essays on Archæological Subjects_
(Wright, T.).]
There figures in Teutonic mythology not only Lif the first parent, but
also a divinity named Alf who is described as young, but of a fine
exterior, and of such remarkably white splendour that rays of light
seemed to issue from his silvery locks. Whether the Anglo-Saxons, like
the Germans, attributed any significance to _eleven_ I do not know: if
they did not the grave here illustrated which was found in the white
chalk of Adisham, Kent, must be assigned to some other race. It is
described by its excavator as follows: "The grave which was cut very
neatly out of the rock chalk was full 5 feet deep; it was of the exact
shape of a cross whose legs pointed very minutely to the four cardinal
points of the compass; and _it was every way eleven feet long_ and about
4 feet broad. At each extremity was a little cover or arched hole each
about 12 inches broad, and about 14 inches high, all very neatly cut
like so many little fireplaces for about a foot beyond the grave into
the chalk."[641] It would seem possible that these crescentic corner
holes were actually ingle nooks, and one may surmise a primitive
lying-in-state with corner fires in lieu of candles. As the Saxons of
the fifth and sixth centuries were notoriously in need of conversion to
the Cross it is difficult to assign this crucial sepulchre to any of
their tribes.
Whether Albion was ever known as Inghilterra or Ingland before the
advent of the Angles from the Elbe need not be here discussed, but, at
any rate, it seems highly unlikely that Anglesea, the sanctuary or
Holyhead of British Druidism, derived its name from Teutonic invaders
who can hardly have penetrated into that remote corner for long after
their first friendly arrival. At the end of the second century
Tertullian made the surprising and very puzzling statement: "Places in
Britain hitherto unvisited by the Romans were subjected to
Christianity":[642] that the cross was not introduced by the Romans is
obvious from the apparition of this emblem on our coinage one to two
hundred years before the Roman invasion; the famous megalithic monument
at Lewis in the Hebrides is cruciform, and the equally famed pyramid at
New Grange is tunnelled in the form of a cross.
[Illustration: FIG. 338.--_Plan an Guare_, St. Just. From _Cornwall_
(Borlase).]
According to Pownal, New Grange was constructed by the Magi "or _Gaurs_
as they were sometimes called":[643] Stonehenge or Stonehengels is
referred to by the British Bards as Choir _Gawr_, a term which is of
questioned origin: the largest stone circle in Ireland is that by Lough
_Gur_; the amphitheatre at St. Just is known as Plan an Guare or _Plain
of Guare_, and the place-name _Gor_hambury or Verulam, where are the
remains of a very perfect amphitheatre, suggests that this circle, as
also that at Lough Gur, and Choir Gawr, was, like Bangor, a home, seat,
or Gorsedd of the Gaurs or Aonges. Doubtless the _gaurs_ of Britain like
the _guru_ or holy men of India, and the _augurs_ of Rome, indulged in
augury: in Hebrew _gor_ means a congregation, and that the ancients
congregated in and around stone circles choiring, and gyrating in a
_gyre_ or wheel, is evident from the statement of Diodorus Siculus,
which is now very generally accepted as referring to Stonehenge or Choir
Gawr. "The inhabitants [of Hyperborea] are great worshippers of Apollo
to whom they sing many many hymns. To this god they have consecrated a
large territory in the midst of which they have a magnificent round
temple replenished with the richest offerings. Their very city is
dedicated to him, and is full of musicians and players on various
instruments who every day celebrate his benefits and perfections."
Among the superstitions of the British was the idyll that the music of
the Druids' harps wafted the soul of the deceased into heaven: these
harps were constructed with the same mysterious regard to the number
three as characterised the whole of the magic or Druidic philosophy: the
British harp was triangular, its strings were three, and its tuning keys
were three-armed: it was thus essentially a harp of Tara. That the
British were most admirable songsters and musicians is vouched for in
numerous directions, and that Stonehenge was the Hinge of the national
religion is evident from the fact that it is mentioned in a Welsh Triad
as one of the "Three Great _Cors_ of Britain in which there were 2400
saints, that is, there were 100 for every hour of the day and night, in
rotation perpetuating the praise of God without intermission".[644] That
similar _choirs_ existed among the _gaurs_ of ancient Ireland would
appear from an incident recorded in the life of St. Columba: the
popularity of this saint was, we are told, so great, even among the
pagan Magi, that 1200 poets who were in Convention brought with them a
poem in his praise: they sang this panegyric with music and chorus, "and
a surpassing music it was"; indeed, so impressive was the effect that
the saint felt a sudden emotion of complacency and gave way to temporary
vanity.
The circle of St. Just was not only known as _Plan an guare_, but also
as _Guirimir_, which has been assumed to be a contraction of _Guiri
mirkl_, signifying in Cornish a _mirkl_ or _miracle_ play.[645]
Doubtless not only Miracle Plays, but sports and interludes of every
description were centred in the circles: that the Druids were competent
and attractive entertainers is probable in view of the fact that the
Arch Druid of Tara is shown as a leaping juggler with golden ear-clasps,
and a speckled coat: he tosses swords and balls into the air "and like
the buzzing of bees on a beautiful day is the motion of each passing the
other".[646]
The circles were similarly the sites of athletic sports, duels, and
other "martial challenges": the prize fight of yesterday was fought in a
ring, and the ring still retains its popular hold. The Celts customarily
banquetted in a circle with the most valiant chieftain occupying the
post of honour in the centre.
We know from Cæsar that the Gauls who were "extremely devoted to
superstitious rites," sent their young men to Britain for instruction in
Druidic philosophy: we also know that it was customary when a war was
declared to vow all captured treasures to the gods: "In many states you
may see piles of these things heaped up in their consecrated spots, nor
does it often happen that anyone disregarding the sanctity of the case
dares either to secrete in his house things captured or take away those
deposited: and the most severe punishment with torture has been
established for such a deed".[647] As British customs "did not differ
much" from those of Gaul it is thus almost a certainty that Stonehenge
was for long periods a vast national treasure-house and Valhalla.
Notwithstanding the abundance of barrows, earthworks, and other
evidences of prehistoric population it is probable that Salisbury Plain
was always a green spot, and we are safe in assuming that Choir Gawr was
the seat of Gorsedds. By immemorial law and custom the Gorsedd had
always to be held on a green spot, in a conspicuous place in full view
and hearing of country and aristocracy, in the face of the sun, the Eye
of Light, and under the expansive freedom of the sky that all might see
and hear. As _sedum_ is the Latin for _seat_, and there seems to be some
uncertainty as to what the term Gorsedd really meant, I may be permitted
to throw out the suggestion that it was a Session, Seat, or Sitting of
the Gaurs or Augurs: by Matthew Arnold the British Gorsedd is described
as the "oldest educational institution in Europe," and moreover as an
institution not known out of Britain.
Slightly over a mile from Stonehenge or Choir Gawr is the nearest
village now known as Amesbury, originally written Ambrosbury or
Ambresbury: here was the meeting-place of Synods even in historic times,
and here was a monastery which is believed to have taken its name from
Ambrosius Aurelius, a British chief. It is more probable that the
monastery and the town were alike dedicated to the "Saint" Ambrose,
particulars of whose life may be found in De Voragine's _Golden Legend_.
According to this authority the name Ambrose may be said "of _ambor_ in
Greek which is to say as father of light, and _soir_ that is a little
child, that is a father of many sons by spiritual generations, clear and
full of light". Or, says De Voragine, "Ambrose is said of a stone named
_ambra_ which is much sweet, oderant, and precious, and also it is much
precious in the church". That amber was likewise precious in the eyes of
the heathen is obvious from its frequent presence in prehistoric tombs,
and from the vast estimation in which it was held by the Druids. Not
only was the golden amber esteemed as an emblem of the golden sun, but
its magical magnetic properties caused it to be valued by the ancients
as even more precious than gold. There was also a poetic notion
connecting amber and Apollo, thus expressed by a Greek poet:--
The Celtic sages a tradition hold
That every drop of amber was a tear
Shed by Apollo when he fled from heaven
For sorely did he weep and sorrowing passed
Through many a doleful region till he reached
The sacred Hyperboreans.[648]
It will be remembered that Salisbury Plain was sometimes known as
Ellendown, with which name may be connoted the statement of Pausanias
that Olen the Hyperborean was the first prophet of Delphi.[649]
On turning to _The Golden Legend_ we seem to get a memory of the Tears
of Apollo in the statement that St. Ambrose was of such great compassion
"that when any confessed to him his sin he wept so bitterly that he
would make the sinner to weep". The sympathies of St. Ambrose, and his
astonishing tendency to dissolve into tears, are again emphasised by the
statement that he wept sore even when he heard of the demise of any
bishop, "and when it was demanded of him why he wept for the death of
good men for he ought better to make joy, because they went to Heaven,"
Ambrose made answer that he shed tears because it was so difficult to
find any man to do well in such offices. The legend continues, "He was
of so great stedfastness and so established in his purpose that he would
not leave for dread nor for grief that might be done to him". In
connection with this proverbial _constancy_ it may be noted that at the
village of _Constantine_ there is a Longstone--the largest in
Cornwall--measuring 20 feet high and known as Maen Amber, or the Amber
Stone: this was apparently known also as Men _Perhen_, and was broken up
into gateposts in 1764. In the same parish is a shaped stone which
Borlase describes as "like the Greek letter omega, somewhat resembling a
cap": from the illustration furnished by Borlase it is evident that this
monument is a _knob_ very carefully modelled and the measurements
recorded, 30 feet in girth, _eleven_ feet high,[650] imply that it was
imminently an Elphinstone, Perhenstone, or Bryanstone. With this
constantly recurrent combination of 30 and 11 feet, may here be
connoted the measurements of the walls of Richborough or Rutupiæ:
according to the locally-published _Short Account_ "the north wall is
the most perfect of the three that remain, 10 feet 8 inches in thickness
and nearly 30 feet in height; the winding courses of tiles to the outer
facing are in nearly their original state".[651] The winding courses
here mentioned consists of five rows of a red brick, and if one allows
for inevitable _detritus_ the original measurements of the quadrangle
walls may reasonably be assumed as having been 30 × 11 feet: the solid
mass of masonry upon which Rutupiæ's cross is superimposed reaches
"downward about 30 feet from the surface". Four or five hundred yards
from the castle and upon the very summit of the hill are the remains of
an amphitheatre in the form of an egg measuring 200 × 160 feet. To this,
the first _walled_ amphitheatre discovered in the country, there were
three entrances upon inclined planes, North, South, and West.
The first miracle recorded of St. Ambrose is to the effect that when an
infant lying in the cradle a swarm of bees descended on his mouth; then
they departed and flew up in the air so high that they might not be
seen. Greek mythology relates that the infant Zeus was fed by bees in
his cradle upon Mount Ida, and a variant of the same fairy-tale
represents Zeus as feeding daily in Ambrosia--
The blessed Gods those rooks Erratic call.
Birds cannot pass them safe, no, not the doves
Which his ambrosia bear to Father Jove.[652]
Ambrosia, the fabled food of the gods, appears to have been honey: it is
said that the Amber stones were anointed with Ambrosia, hence it is
significant to find in immediate proximity to each other the
place-names Honeycrock and Amberstone in Sussex. The Russians have an
extraordinary idea that Ambrosia emanated from horses' heads,[653] and
as there is a "Horse Eye Level" closely adjacent to the Sussex
Honeycrock and Amberstone we may assume that the neighbouring Hailsham,
supposed to mean "Home of Aela or Eile," was originally an Ellie or
Elphin Home. Layamon refers to Stonehenge, "a plain that was pleasant
besides Ambresbury," as Aelenge, which probably meant Ellie or Elphin
meadow, for _ing_ or _inge_ was a synonym for meadow. The correct
assumption may possibly be that all flowery meads were the recognised
haunts of the anges or ingles: the fairy rings are usually found in
meadows, and the poets feigned Proserpine in a meadow gathering flowers
ere she was ravished below by Pluto: as late as 1788 an English poet
expressed the current belief, "'Tis said the fairy people meet beneath
the bracken shade on _mead_ and hill".
Across the Sussex mead known as Horse Eye Level runs a "Snapsons Drove":
Snap is a curious parental name and is here perhaps connected with
Snave, a Kentish village, presumably associated with _San Aphe_ or _San
Ap_.[654] Not only was the hipha or hobby horse decorated with a knop or
knob, but a radical feature of its performance seems to have been
movable jaws with which by means of a string the actor snapped at all
and sundry: were these snappers, I wonder, the origin of the Snapes and
Snapsons? In view of the fact that the surname Leaper is authoritatively
connoted with an entry in a fifteenth century account-book: "To one
that _leped_ at Chestre 6s. 8d.," the suggestion may possibly be worth
consideration.
In Sussex there are two Ambershams and an Amberley: in Hants is
Amberwood. St. Ambrose is recorded to have been born in Rome, whence it
is probable that he was the ancient divinity of _Umbria_: in Derbyshire
there is a river Amber, and in Yorkshire a Humber, which the authorities
regard as probably an aspirated form of _cumber_, "confluence". The
magnetic properties of _amber_, which certainly cause a _humber_ or
confluence, may have originated this meaning; in any case _cumber_ and
_umber_ are radically the same word. Probably Humberstones and
Amberstones will be found on further inquiry to be as plentiful as
Prestons or Peri stones: there is a Humberstone in Lincolnshire, another
at Leicester, near Bicester is Ambrosden, and at Epping Forest is
Ambresbury. This Epping Ambresbury, known alternatively as Ambers'
Banks, is admittedly a British _oppidum_: the remains cover 12 acres of
ground and are situated on the highest plateau in the forest. As there
is an Ambergate near _Bux_ton it is noteworthy that Ambers' Banks in
Epping are adjacent to Beak Hill, Buckhurst Hill, and High Beech Green.
I have already connoted Puck or Bogie with the beech tree, and it is
probable that Fairmead Plain by High Beech Green was the Fairy mead
where once the pixies gathered: close by is Bury Wood, and there is no
doubt the neighbourhood of Epping and Upton was always very British.
In old English _amber_ or _omber_ meant a pitcher--query a
honey-crock[655]--whence the authorities translate the various
Amberleys as _meadow of the pitcher_, and Ambergate, near Buxton, as
"probably pitcher road". The Amber Hill near Boston, we are told, "will
be from Old English _amber_ from its shape," but as it is extremely
unusual to find hills in the form of a pitcher this etymology seems
questionable. At the Wiltshire Ambresbury there is a Mount Ambrosius at
the foot of which, according to local tradition, used to exist a college
of Druidesses,[656] in which connection it is noteworthy that just as
Silbury Hill is distant about a mile from the Avebury Circle, so Mount
Ambrosius is equally distant from Choir Gawr.
[Illustration: FIG. 339.--A Persian King, adorned with a Pyramidal
Flamboyant Nimbus. Persian Manuscript, Bibliothèque
Royale. From _Christian Iconography_ (Didron).]
To Amber may be assigned the words _umpire_ and _empire_; Oberon, the
lovely child, is haply described as the _Emperor_ of Fairyland, whence
also no doubt he was the lord and master of the _Empyrean_. When dealing
elsewhere with the word _amber_ I suggested that it meant radically _Sun
Father_,[657] and there are episodes in the life of St. Ambrose which
support this interpretation, _e.g._, "it happened that an enchanter
called devils to him and sent them to St. Ambrose for to annoy and
grieve him, but the devils returned and said that they might not
approach to his gate because there was a great fire all about his
house". Among the Persians it was customary to halo their divinities,
not with a circle but with a pyre or pyramid of fire, and in all
probability to the _auburn_ Auberon the Emperor of the Empyrean may be
assigned not only _burn_ and _brand_, but also _bran_ in the sense of
bran new. That St. Ambrose was Barnaby Bright or the White god of day is
implied by the anecdote "a fire in the manner of a shield covered his
head, and entered into his mouth: then became his face as white as any
snow, and anon it came again to his first form".[658] The basis of this
story would seem to have been a picture representing Ambrose with fire
not entering into, but _emerging from_, his mouth and forming a
surrounding halo "in the manner of a shield". _Embers_ now mean ashes,
and the Ember Days of Christianity probably trace backward to the
immemorial times of prehistoric fire-worship. At Parton, near Salisbury,
one meets with the curious surname Godber: and doubtless inquiry would
establish a connection between this Godber of Parton and Godfrey.
[Illustration: FIG. 340.--The Divine Triplicity, Contained within the
Unity. From a German Engraving of the XVI. Cent. From
_Christian Iconography_ (Didron).]
The weekly fair at Ambresbury used to be held on _Fri_day; the maid
Freya, to whom Friday owes its name, was evidently _Fire Eye_; the Latin
_feriæ_ were the hey-days or holidays dedicated to some fairy. Fairs
were held customarily on the festival of the local saint, frequently
even to-day within ancient earthworks: the most famous Midsummer Fair
used to be that held at _Barnwell_: Feronia, the ancient Italian
divinity at whose festival a great fair was held, and the first-fruits
of the field offered, is, as has been shown, equivalent to Beronia or
Oberon.
[Illustration: FIG. 341.--God, Beardless, either the Son or the
Father. French Miniature of the XI. Cent. From
_Christian Iconography_ (Didron).]
[Illustration: FIG. 342.--British. From Evans.]
According to Borlase there is in Anglesea "a horse-shoe 22 paces in
diameter called Brangwyn or Supreme court; it lies in a place called
Tre'r Drew or Druids' Town".[659] Stonehenge consists of a circle
enclosing a horse-shoe or hoof--the footprint and sign of Hipha the
White Mare, or Ephialtes the Night Mare, and a variant of this idea is
expressed in the circle enclosing a triangle as exhibited in the
Christian emblem on p. 571. That Christianity did not always conceive
the All Father as the Ancient of Days is evident from Fig. 341, where
the central Power is depicted within the _writhings_ of what is
seemingly an acanthus _wreath_: the CUNOB fairy on the British coin
illustrated _ante_, page 528, is extending what is either a ball of
fire or else a wreath. The word _wraith_, meaning apparition, is
connoted by Skeat with an Icelandic term meaning "a pile of stones to
warn a wayfarer," hence this _heap_ may be connoted with _rath_ the
Irish, and _rhaith_ the Welsh, for a fairy dun or hill. Skeat further
connotes _wraith_ with the Norwegian word _vardyvle_, meaning "a
guardian or attendant spirit seen to follow or precede one," and he
suggests that _vardyvle_ meant _ward evil_. Certainly the _wraiths_ who
haunted the raths were supposed to ward off evil, and the giant
Wreath,[660] who was popularly associated with Port_reath_ near
_Redruth_, was in all probability the same _wraith_ that originated the
place-name Cape Wrath. In Welsh a speech is called _ar raith_ or on the
mound, hence we may link _rhe_toric to this idea, and assume that the
raths were the seats of public eloquence as we know they were.
As wreath means a circle it is no doubt the same word as _rota_, a
wheel, and Rodehengenne or Stonehengels may have meant the Wheel Angels.
The cruciform _rath_, illustrated _ante_, page 55, is pre-eminently a
_rota_, and in Fig. 343 Christ is represented in a circle supported by
four somewhat unaerial Evangelists or Angels.
Mount Ida in Phrygia was the reputed seat of the _Dactyli_, a word which
means _fingers_, and these mysterious Powers were sometimes identified
with the Cabiri. The Dactyli, or _fingers_, are described as fabulous
beings to whom the discovery of iron and the art of working it by means
of fire was ascribed, and as the philosophy of Phairie is always
grounded upon some childishly simple basis, it is probable that the
Elphin eleven in its elementary sense represented the ten fingers
controlled by Emperor Brain. The digits are magic little workmen who
level mountains and rear palaces at the bidding of their lord and master
Brain: the word _digit_, French _doight_, is in fact _Good god_, and
_dactyli_ is the same word plus a final _yli_.
[Illustration: FIG. 343.--Christ with a Plain Nimbus, Ascending to
Heaven in a Circular Aureole. Carving in Wood of the
XIV. Cent. From Evans.]
In _Folklore as an Historical Science_ Sir Laurence Gomme lays some
stress upon a tale which is common alike to Britain and Brittany, and is
therefore supposed to be of earlier date than the separation of Britons
and Bretons. This tale which centres at London, is to the effect that a
countryman once upon a time dreamed there was a priceless treasure
hidden at London Bridge: he therefore started on a quest to London where
on arrival he was observed loitering and was interrogated by a
bystander. On learning the purpose of his trip the Cockney laughed
heartily at such simplicity, and jestingly related how he himself had
also dreamed a dream to the effect that there was treasure buried in the
countryman's own village. On his return home the rustic, thinking the
matter over, decided to dig where the cockney had facetiously indicated,
whereupon to his astonishment he actually found a pot containing
treasure. On the first pot unearthed was an inscription reading--
Look lower, where this stood
Is another twice as good.
Encouraged he dug again, whereupon to his greater astonishment he found
a second pot bearing the same inscription: again he dug and found a
third pot even yet more valuable. This fabulously ancient tale is
notably identified with Upsall in Yorkshire; it is, we are told, "a
constant tradition of the neighbourhood, and the identical bush yet
exists (or did in 1860) beneath which the treasure was found; a
_bur_tree or elder."[661] Upsall was originally written Upeshale and
Hupsale (primarily Ap's Hall?) and the idea is a happy one, for in
mythology it is undeniably true that the deeper one delves the richer
proves the treasure trove. In suggesting that eleven may have been the
number of the ten digits guided and controlled by the Brain one may thus
not only remark the injunction to the Jews: "Thou shalt make curtains of
goatshair to be a covering upon the tabernacle: _eleven_ curtains shalt
thou make,"[662] but one may note also the probable elucidation of this
Hebrew symbolism:--
Shall any gazer see with mortal eyes
Or any searcher know by mortal mind;
Veil after veil will lift, but there must be
Veil upon veil behind.[663]
Assuming that in the simplest sense the elphin eleven were the ten
digits and the Brain, one may compare with this combination the ten
Powers or qualities which according to the Cabala emanated from "The
Most Ancient One". "He has given existence to all things. He made ten
lights spring forth from His midst, lights which shone with the forms
which they had borrowed from Him and which shed everywhere the light of
a brilliant day. The Ancient One, the most Hidden of the hidden, is a
high beacon, and we know Him only by His lights which illuminate our
eyes so abundantly. His Holy Name is no other thing than these
lights."[664]
According to _The Golden Legend_ the Emperor of Constantinople applied
to St. Ambrose to receive the sacred mysteries, and that Ambrose was
Vera or Truth is hinted by the testimony of the Emperor. "I have found a
man of _truth_, my master Ambrose, and such a man ought to be a bishop."
The word _bishop_, Anglo-Saxon _biscop_, supposed to mean _overseer_, is
like the Greek _episcopus_, radically _op_, an _eye_.[665] Egyptian
archæologists tell us that in Egypt the Coptic Land of the Great Optic,
even the very games had a religious significance; whence there was
probably some ethical idea behind the British "jingling match by eleven
blind-folded men and one unmasked and hung with bells". This joyous and
diverting _jeu_ is mentioned as part of the sports-programme at the
celebrated Scouring of the White Horse: we have already noted the
blind-folded Little Leaf Man, led blind Amor-like from house to house,
also the _Blind_ Man who is said to have sat for _eleven_ years in the
Church of St. Maur (or Amour?), and among other sports at the Scouring,
eleven enters again into an account of chasing the fore wheel of a wagon
down the hill slope. The trundling of a fiery wheel--which doubtless
took place at the several British Trendle Hills--is a well-known feature
of European solar ceremonies: the greater interest of the Scouring item
is perhaps in the number of competitors: "_eleven_ on 'em started and
amongst 'em a sweep-chimley and a millard [milord], and the millard
tripped up the sweep-chimley and made the zoot fly a good 'un--the wheel
ran pretty nigh down to the springs that time".[666]
[Illustration: FIGS. 344 and 345.--British. From Akerman and Evans.]
The Jewish conception of The Most Ancient One, the most Hidden of the
hidden, reappears in Jupiter Ammon, whose sobriquet of Ammon meant _the
hidden one_: "Verily, Thou art a God that hidest Thyself". In England
the game of _Hide and Seek_ used to be known as _Hooper's Hide_,[667]
and this curious connection between Jupiter, the Hidden one, and
_Hooper's Hide_ somewhat strengthens my earlier surmise that Hooper =
Iupiter.
In the opinion of Sir John Evans "there can be little doubt" of the head
upon the obverse of Fig. 344 being intended for Jupiter Ammon;[668] in
Cornish Blind Man's Hide and Seek, the players used to shout "Vesey,
vasey vum: _Buckaboo_ has come!"[669]
[Illustration: FIG. 346.--Glass Beads, England and Ireland. From _A
Guide to the Antiquities of the Early Iron Age_
(B.M.).]
[Illustration: FIG. 347.--From _A Guide to the Antiquities of the
Bronze Age_ (B.M.).]
[Illustration: FIG. 348.--From _Archaic Sculpturings_ (L. Mann).]
If as now suggested the wheel and the "spindle whorl" were alike symbols
of the Eye of Heaven, it is equally probable that the amber, and many
other variety of bead, was also a talismanic eyeball:[670] among grave
deposits the blue bead was very popular, assumedly for the reason that
blue was the colour of heaven. Large quantities of blue "whorls" were
discovered by Schliemann[671] at Mykenæ, and among the many varieties of
beads found in Britain one in particular is described as "of a Prussian
Blue colour with three circular grooves round the circumference, filled
with white paste".[672] This design of three circles reappears in Fig.
347 taken from the base of a British Incense-cup; likewise in a group of
rock sculpturings (Fig. 348) found at Kirkmabreck in Kirkcudbrightshire.
Mr. Ludovic Mann, who sees traces of astronomical intention in this
sculpture, writes: "If the pre-historic peoples of Scotland and indeed
Europe had this conception, then the Universe to their mind would
consist of eleven units, namely, the nine celestial bodies already
referred to, and the Central Fire and the 'Counter-Earth'. Very probably
they knew also of elliptical motions. Oddly enough the cult of eleven
units (which I detected some fifteen years ago) representing the
universe can be discerned in the art of the late Neolithic and Bronze
Ages in Scotland and over a much wider area. For example, in nearly all
the cases of Scottish necklaces of beads of the Bronze Age which have
survived intact, it will be found that they consist of a number of beads
which is eleven or a multiple of eleven. I have, for example, a fine
Bronze Age necklace from Wigtownshire consisting of 187 beads (that is
of 17 × 11) and a triangular centre piece. The same curious recurrence
of the number and its multiples can often be detected in the number of
standing stones in a circle, in the number of stones placed in slightly
converging rows found in Caithness, Sutherland, some parts of England,
Wales, and in Brittany. The number eleven is occasionally involved in
the Bronze Age pottery decorations, and in the patterns on certain
ornaments and relics of the Bronze Age.... The Cult of eleven seems to
survive in the numerous names of Allah, who was known by ninety-nine
names, and hence it is invariably the case that the Mahommedan has a
necklace consisting of either eleven or a multiple of eleven beads but
not exceeding ninety-nine, as he is supposed to repeat one of the names
for each bead which he tells."[673]
We have seen that the _rudraksha_ or eye of the god S'iva seeds are
usually eleven faceted, and my surmise that the whorls of Troy were
universal Eyes is further implied by the group here illustrated.
According to Thomas, our British Troy Towns or Caer Troiau were
originally astronomical observatories, and he derives the word _troiau_
from the verb _troi_ to _turn_, or from _tro_ signifying a _flux of
time_:--[674]
By ceaseless actions all that is subsists;
Constant rotation of th' unwearied wheel
That Nature rides upon, maintains her health,
Her beauty and fertility. She dreads
An instant's pause and lives but while she moves.
The Trojan whorls are unquestionably _tyres_ or _tours_, and the notion
of an eye is in some instances clearly imparted to them by radiations
which resemble those of the _iris_. The wavy lines of No. 1835 and 1840
probably denote water or the spirit, in No. 1847 the "Jupiter chain" of
our SOLIDO coin reappears; the astral specks on 1841 and 1844 may be
connoted with the stars and planets, and in 1833 the sense of rolling or
movement is clearly indicated.
[Illustration: FIG. 349.--Specimen Patterns of Whorls Dug up at Troy.
From _Ilios_ (Schliemann).]
[Illustration: FIG. 350.--Specimen Patterns of Whorls Dug up at Troy.
From _Ilios_ (Schliemann).]
Schliemann supposes that the thousands of whorls found in Troy served as
offerings to the tutelary deity of the city, _i.e._, Athene: some of
them have the form of a cone, or of two cones base to base, and that
Troy was pre-eminently a town of the Eternal Eye is perhaps implied by
the name Troie.
Fig. 351 is a ground plan of Trowdale Mote in Scotland which, situated
on a high and lonely marshland within near sight of nothing but a few
swelling hillocks amongst reeds and mosses and water, has been described
as the "strangest, most solitary, most prehistoric looking of all our
motes".[675]
[Illustration: FIG. 351.--From Proceedings Soc. Ant. Scot.]
It was popularly supposed that all the witches of West Cornwall used to
meet at midnight on Midsummer Eve at Trewa (pronounced _Troway_) in the
parish of Zennor, and around the dying fires renewed their vows to the
Devil, their master. In this wild Zennor (supposedly _holy land_)
district is a witch's rock which if touched nine times at midnight
reputedly brought good luck.
The "Troy Town" of Welsh children is the Hopscotch of our London
pavements; at one time every English village seems to have possessed its
maze (or Drayton?), and that the mazes were the haunts of fairies is
well known:--
... the yellow skirted fays
Fly after the night steeds
Leaving their moon-loved maze.
In _A Midsummer-Night's Dream_ Titania laments:--
The nine men's morris is filled up with mud
And the quaint mazes in the wanton green
For lack of tread are indistinguishable.
At St. Martha's Church near Guildford, facing Newlands Corner are the
remains of an earthwork maze close by the churchyard, and within this
maze used to be held the country sports.[676] We shall consider some
extraordinarily quaint mazes and Troy Towns in a subsequent chapter, but
meanwhile it may here be noted that in the Scilly Islands (which the
Greeks entitled Hesperides) is a monument thus described: "Close to the
edge of the cliff is a curious enclosure called Troy Town, taking its
name from the Troy of ancient history; the streets of ancient Troy were
so constructed that an enemy, once within the gates, could not find his
way out again. The enclosure has an outer circle of white pebbles placed
on the turf, with an opening at one point, supposed to represent the
walls and gate of Troy. Within this there are several rows of stones;
the spaces between them represent the streets. It presents quite a maze,
and but few who enter can find their way out again without crossing one
of the boundary lines. It is not known when or by whom it was
constructed, but it has from time to time been restored by the
islanders."[677]
This Troy Town is situated on _Camper_dizil Point; in the same
neighbourhood is Carn _Himbra_ Point, and _Himbrian, Kymbrian_, or
_Cambrian_ influences are seemingly much evident in this district, as
doubtless they also were at Comberton[678] famous for its maze.
At the very centre, eye, or _San Troy_ of St. Mary's Island is situated
Holy Vale, and here also are the place-names Maypole, Burrow, and
Content. It has already been suggested that Bru or Burrow was originally
_pure Hu_ or _pere Hu_, Hu being, as will be remembered, the traditional
Leader of the Kymbri into these islands, and the first of the Three
National Pillars of Britain: the chief town of St. Mary's is Hugh Town,
and running through Holy Vale is what is described as a paved way (in
wonderful preservation) known as the Old Roman Road, formerly supposed
to be the main-way to Hugh Town. One may be allowed to question whether
the Legions of Imperial Rome ever troubled to construct so fine a
causeway in so insignificant an island; or if so, for what reason? The
houses of Holy Vale are embowered in trees of larger growth than those
elsewhere in the neighbourhood: they "complete a picture of great calm
and repose," and that this Holy Vale was anciently an _abri_ is fairly
self-evident apart from the interesting place-name _Burrow_, and the
neighbouring Bur Point.
The Romans entitled the Scillies _Sillinæ Insulæ_: I have already
suggested they were a seat of the Selli; we have met with Selene in
connection with St. Levan's, and it is not improbable that the deity of
_Sillinæ Insulæ_ was Selene, Helena, or Luna. The Silus stone from the
ruined chapel of St. Helen's at Helenium or Land's End (Cape Cornwall)
has been already noted: the most ancient building in all the _Sillinæ
Insulæ_ or the Scillies is the ruined chapel on St. Helen's of which the
northern aisle now measures 12 feet wide and 19 feet 6 inches long. As
the Hellenes usually had ideas underlying all their measurements it is
probable that the 19 feet 6 inches was primarily 19 feet, for nineteen
was a highly mystic Hellenic number. Of the Hyperboreans Diodorus
states: "They say, moreover, that Apollo once in nineteen years comes
into the island in which space of time the stars perform their courses
and return to the same points, and therefore the Greeks call the
revolutions of nineteen years the Great Year". Nineteen nuns tended the
sacred fire of St. Bridget, and according to some observers the inmost
circle of Stonehenge consisted of nineteen "Blue Stones".[679] These
nineteen Stone Hengles may be connoted with the nineteen ruined huts on
the summit of Ingleborough in Yorkshire: the summit of Ingleborough is a
plateau of about a mile in circuit and hereupon are "vestiges of an
ancient British camp of about 15 acres inclosing traces of _nineteen_
ancient _horseshoe shaped_ huts".[680]
As the word _ingle_, meaning _fire_, is not found until 1508 the
authorities are unable to interpret Ingleborough as meaning Fire hill,
although without doubt it served as a Beacon: the same etymological
difficulty likewise confronts them at Ingleby Cross, Inglesham, numerous
Ingletons, and at Ingestre. We have seen that Inglewood was known as
Englysshe Wood;[681] in Somerset is Combe English, and in the Scillies
is English Island Hill: 500 yards from this English Hill is a stone
circle embracing an upright stone the end of which is 18 inches square.
[Illustration: FIG. 352.--Stonehenge Restored. From _Our Ancient
Monuments_ (Kains-Jackson).]
Eighteen courtiers were assigned to the _ange_ Oberon: the megalith Long
Meg is described as a square unhewn freestone column 15 feet in
circumference by 18 feet high, and there is no doubt that eighteen or
twice nine possessed at one time some significance. I suspect that the
double nine stood for the Twain, each of which was reckoned as nine or
True: on the top of Hellingy Downs in the Scillies is a barrow covered
with large stones _nine_ feet long, and built upon a mound which is
surrounded by inner and outer rows of stone.[682]
On Salakee Downs there is a monolith resting on a large flat rock, on
three projections situated at a distance of _eighteen_ inches from one
another and each having a diameter of about 2 inches:[683] this is known
as the Druid's throne, and about 5 yards to the east are two more
upright rocks of similar size and shape named the Twin Sisters.[684] The
Twin Sisters of Biddenden, whose name was Preston, were associated with
five pieces of ground known as the Bread and Cheese Lands, in which
connection it is interesting to find that near English Island Hill is
Chapel _Brow_, constituting the eastern point of a deep bay known by the
curious name of Bread and Cheese Cove.[685] In connection with Biddenden
we connoted Pope's Hall and Bubhurst; it is thus noteworthy that near
Bread and Cheese Cove is a Bab's Carn, and a large sea cavern known as
Pope's Hole.
In Germany and Scandinavia the stone circles are known not as Merry
Maidens, but as Adam's Dances. Close to Troy Town on St. Agnes in the
Scillies are two rocks known as Adam and Eve: these are described as
_nine_ feet high with a space about _nine_ inches between them: "Here,
too, is the Nag's Head, which is the most curious rock to be met with on
the islands; it has a remote resemblance to the head of a horse, and
would seem to have been at one time an object of worship, being
surrounded by a circle of stones".[686]
On the lower slopes of Hellingy are the remains of a primitive village,
and the foundations of many circular huts: among these foundations have
been found a considerable quantity of crude pottery, and an ancient
hand-mill which the authorities assign to about 2000 B.C. We have seen
that the goddesses of Celtdom were known as the _Mairæ, Matronæ,
Matres_, or _Matræ_ (the mothers): further, that the Welsh for Mary is
Fair, whence the assumption becomes pressing that the "Saint" Mary of
the Scillies was primarily the Merry Fairy. The author of _The English
Language_ points out that in Old English _merry_ meant originally no
more than "agreeable, pleasing". Heaven and Jerusalem were described by
old poets as "merry" places; and the word had supposedly no more than
this signification in the phrase "Merry England," into which we read a
more modern interpretation.[687] That the Scillies were permeated with
the Fairy Faith is sufficiently obvious; at Hugh Town we find the
ubiquitous Silver Street, and the neighbouring Holvear Hill was not
improbably holy to Vera.
Near the Island of St. Helen's is a group of rocks marked upon the map
as Golden Ball Bar; near by is an islet named Foreman. The farthest
sentinel of the Scillies is an islet named the Bishop, now famous to all
sea-farers for its _phare_. It is quite certain that no human Bishop
would ever have selected as his residence an abode so horribly exposed,
whence it is more likely that the Bishop here commemorated was the
Burnebishop or Boy Bishop whose ceremonies were maintained until recent
years, notably and particularly at Cambrai. In England it is curious to
find the Lady-bird or Burnie Bee equated with a Bishop, yet it was so;
and hence the rhyme:--
Bishop, Bishop Burnebee, tell me when my wedding will be,
Fly to the east, fly to the west,
Fly to them that I love best.
In connection with the Island of St. _Agnes_ it may be noted that
_ignis_ is the Latin for _fire_, whence it is possible that the islets,
Big Smith and Little Smith, Burnt Island and Monglow, all had some
relation to the Fieryman, Fairy Man, or Foreman: it is also possible
that the neighbouring Camperdizil Point is connected with _deiseul_, the
Scotch ejaculation, and with _dazzle_. Troy Town in St. Agnes is almost
environed by Smith Sound, and this curious combination of names points
seemingly to some connection between the Cambers and the metal
smiths.[688]
It will be remembered that Agnes was a title of the Papesse Jeanne, who
was said to have come from Engelheim or _Angel's Home_: in Germany the
Lady Bird used to be known as the Lady Mary's Key-bearer, and exhorted
to fly to Engelland: "Insect of Mary, fly away, fly away, to Engelland.
Engelland is locked, its key is broken."[689] Sometimes the invocation
ran: "Gold chafer up and away to thy high storey to thy Mother Anne, who
gives thee _bread and cheese_. 'Tis better than bitter death."[690]
Thanks to an uncultured and tenacious love of Phairie, the keys of rural
Engelland have not yet been broken, nor happily is Engelland locked. Our
history books tell us of a splendid pun[691] perpetrated by a Bishop of
many centuries ago: noticing some captured English children in the
market-place at Rome, he woefully exclaimed that had they been baptised
then would they have been _non Angli sed angeli_. Has this episcopal
pleasantry been overrated? or was the good Bishop punning unconsciously
deeper than he intended?
FOOTNOTES:
[593] Gomme, Sir L., _London_, p. 74.
[594] _De bello Gallico_, v., 21.
[595] Blackie, C., _Dictionary of Place-names_, p. 21.
[596] Garnier, Col., _The Worship of the Dead_, p. 240.
[597] Thomas, J., _Brit. Antiquissima_, p. 108.
[598] The choral music of the Teutons did not create a favourable
impression on the mind of Tacitus, _vide_ his account of a
primitive Hymn of Hate: "The Germans abound with rude strains
of verse, the reciters of which, in the language of the
country, are called Bards. With this barbarous poetry they
inflame their minds with ardour in the day of action, and
prognosticate the event from the impression which it happens
to make on the minds of the soldiers, who grow terrible to
the enemy, or despair of success, as the war-song produces an
animated or a feeble sound. Nor can their manner of chanting
this savage prelude be called the tone of human organs: it is
rather a furious uproar; a wild chorus of military virtue.
The vociferation used upon these occasions is uncouth and
harsh, at intervals interrupted by the application of their
bucklers to their mouths, and by the repercussion bursting
out with redoubled force."--_Germania_, I., iii., p. 313.
[599] Blackman, Winifred S., _The Rosary in Magic and Religion_,
Folklore, xxiv., 4.
[600] Wright, E. M., _Rustic Speech and Folklore_, p. 303.
[601] _Cf._ Hazlitt, W. Carew, _Faiths and Folklore_, i., p. 314.
[602] Cockney dialect is closely akin to Kentish, and abounds in
venerable verbal relics: "The stranger enters, but he
nonetheless pays his toll; he does not leave any mark on
London, but London leaves an indelible stamp upon him. The
children of the foreigner, the children of the Yorkshireman
or Lancastrian, belong in speech neither to Yorkshire nor
Lancashire, they become more Cockney than the Cockneys; and
even the alien voices of the east end, notably less musical
than those of our own people, take on the tones of London's
ancient speech."--MacBride, Mackenzie, _London's Dialect, An
Ancient form of English Speech, with a Note on the Dialects
of the North of England, and the Midlands and Scotland_, p.
8.
[603] Bliss, J. B., _A Mound of Many Cities or Tell el Hesy
Excavated_.
[604] I was unaware of this rather corroborative evidence when I
put forward the suggestion five years ago that _Egypt_ was
radically _ypte_ or _Good Eye_.
[605] The Iberians and Jews also possessed a never-to-be-uttered
sacred Name.
[606] _Barddas_, p. 95.
[607] _Ibid._, p. 251.
[608] _Barddas_, p. 23.
[609] As also was the Bardic conception of God, summed up in the
Triad:--
"Three things which God cannot but be; whatever perfect
Goodness ought to be; whatever perfect
Goodness would desire to be; and whatever perfect
Goodness can be."
Again--
"There is nothing beautiful but what is just;
There is nothing just but _love_;
There is no love but God."
And thus it ends. Tydain, the Father of Awen, sang it, says
the Book of Sion Cent (_Barddas_, p. 219).
[610] Eckenstein, L., _Comparative Studies in Nursery Rhymes_, p.
146.
[611] Illustrated on page opposite.
[612] This name appears on maps sometimes as Salla Key, sometimes
as Salakee.
[613] Tonkin, J. C., _Lyonesse_, p. 38.
[614] Randolph (1657).
[615] Johnson, W., _Byways_, p. 185.
[616] Hazlitt, W. Carew, _Faiths and Folklore_, i., 309.
[617] Quoted from Harrison, J., _Ancient Art and Ritual_, p. 188.
[618] _Folklore_, XXV., iv., p. 426.
[619] Larwood and Hotten, _Hist. of Signboards_, p. 504.
[620] _Cf._ Borlase, W., _Cornwall_, pp. 193, 201.
[621] One may connote this ceremony with the Bardic triad: "God is
the measuring rod of all truth, all justice, and all
goodness, therefore He is a yoke on all, and all are under
it, and woe to him who shall violate it".
[622] See Fig. 331, p. 538.
[623] Quoted from _Science of Language_, Max Müller, p. 540.
[624] Sabean Litany attributed to Enoch.
[625] _G. L._, v. 185, 195.
[626] Walford E., _Greater London_, vol. ii., p. 299.
[627] Dennis G., _Cities of Etruria_.
[628] _Cornwall_, vol. i., 397; _Victoria County Histories_.
[629] _Cornwall_, vol. i., 394; _Victoria County Histories_.
[630] Blackie's _Dictionary of Place-Names_ defines Godmanham as
follows: "the holy man's dwelling, the site of an idol temple
destroyed under the preaching of Paulinus whose name it
bears," p. 98.
[631] "The year before last I went to Bodavon Mountain to take
photographs of the cromlech that used to lie there. When I
got there, however, I found the place absolutely bare, not a
vestige of the cromlech remaining. On making inquiries, a
road newly metalled was pointed out to me, and I was told
that the cromlech had been used for that purpose. This was
done despite the fact that many tons of loose stone are lying
on the mountain-side close by."--Griffith, John E., _The
Cromlechs of Anglesey and Carnarvon_, 1900.
[632] Huyshe, W., _Life of St. Columba_, p. 176.
[633] Hazlitt, W. Carew, _Faiths and Folklore_, i., 210.
[634] "The metrical historian Hardyng twice employed but without
explaining the appellation _stone Hengels_, 'which called is
the Stone Hengles certayne'. This reads like _lapides
Anglorum_ or _lapides Angelorum_."--Herbert, A., _Cyclops
Christianus_, p. 165.
[635] "Who would ween, in this worlds realm, that Hengest thought
to deceive the king who had his daughter. For there is never
any man, that men may not over-reach with treachery. They
took an appointed day, that these people should come
together with concord and with peace, in a plain that was
pleasant beside Ambresbury; the place was _Aelenge_; now
hight it Stonehenge. There Hengest the traitor, either by
word or by writ, made known to the king; that he would come
with his forces, in honour of the king; but he would not
bring in retinue but three hundred knights, the wisest men
of all that he might find. And the king should bring as many
on his side bold thanes, and who should be wisest of all
that dwelt in Britain, with their good vestments, all
without weapons, that no evil, should happen to them,
through confidence of the weapons. Thus they it spake, and
eft they it brake; for Hengest the traitor thus gan he teach
his comrades, that each should take a long saex (knife), and
lay be his shank, within his hose, where he it might hide.
When they came together, the Saxons and Britons, then quoth
Hengest, most deceitful of all knights: 'Hail be thou, lord
king, each is to thee thy subject! If ever any of thy men
hath weapon by his side, send it with friendship far from
ourselves, and be we in amity, and speak we of concord; how
we may with peace our lives live.' Thus the wicked man spake
there to the Britons. Then answered Vortiger--here he was
too unwary--'If here is any knight so wild, that hath weapon
by his side, he shall lose the hand through his own brand,
unless he soon send it hence'. Their weapons they sent away,
then had they nought in hand; knights went upward, knights
went downward, each spake with other as if he were his
brother.
"When the Britons were mingled with the Saxons, then called
Hengest of knights most treacherous: 'Take your saexes, my
good warriors, and bravely bestir you and spare ye none!'
Noble Britons were there, but they knew not of the speech,
what the Saxish men said them between. They drew out the
saexes, all aside; they smote on the right side, they smote
on the left side; before and behind they laid them to the
ground; all they slew that they came nigh; of the king's men
there fell four hundred and five, woe was the king
alive!"--Layamon, _Brut._.
[636] _Cf._ Herbert, A., _Cyclops Christianius_, p. 163.
[637] _Surnames_, p. 31.
[638] _Cf._ Hazlitt, W. Carew, _Faith and Folklore_, ii., 389.
[639] _Teutonic Mythology_, Rydberg, p. 360.
[640] _Demonology_, 177.
[641] _Cf._ Wright, T., _Essays on Archæological Subjects_, i.,
120.
[642] Davies, D., _The Ancient Celtic Church of Wales_, p. 14.
[643] _Cf._ _Sketches of Irish History_, anon., Dublin, 1844.
[644] _Cf._ Gordon, E. O., _Prehistoric London, its Mounds and
Circles_, p. 67.
[645] Borlase, _Cornwall_, p. 208.
[646] _Cf._ Bonwick, J., _Irish Druids_, p. 11.
[647] _De Bello Gallico_, VI., x., 17.
[648] Quoted by Bryant from _Appollon Argonaut_, L. 4, V. 611.
[649] _Cf._ Wilkes, Anna, _Ireland, Ur of the Chaldees_, p. 88.
[650] Borlase, _Antiquities of Cornwall_, p. 173.
[651] p. 6.
[652] _Odyssey_, XII.
[653] Johnson, W., _Byways_, p. 440.
[654] As all our _Avons_ are traced to Sanscrit _ap_, meaning
water, one may here note the Old English word _snape_,
meaning _a spring_ in arable ground.
[655] In the mediæval _Story of Asenath_, the Angel who describes
himself as "Prince of the House of God and Captain of His
Host," and was thus presumably Michael, says to Asenath;
"Look within thine _Aumbrey_, and thou shall find withal to
furnish thy table". Then she hastened thereto and found "a
store of Virgin honey, white as snow of sweetest savour". The
archangel tells Asenath that "all whom Penitence bringeth
before Him shall eat of this honey gathered by the bees of
Paradise, from the dew of the roses of Heaven, and those who
eat thereof shall never see death but shall live for
evermore."--_Aucassin and Nicolette and other Mediæval
Romances_, p. 209 (Everyman's Library).
[656] Gordon, A. O., _Prehistoric London_, p. 66.
[657] _Lost Language_, ii., 141.
[658] _Golden Legend_, iii., 117.
[659] _Cornwall_, p. 207.
[660] Hunt, J., _Popular Romances of the West of England_, p. 76.
[661] P. 20
[662] Exod. xxvi. 7.
[663] Arnold, E., _Light of Asia_.
[664] _Cf._ Abelson, J., _Jewish Mysticism_, p. 137.
[665] The Bryan of popular ballad seems to have been famed for the
casting of his glad eye:--
"Bryan he was tall and strong
Right blithsome rolled his een."
--_Percy Reliques_, i., 276.
[666] Hughes, T., _Scouring the White Horse_, p. 110.
[667] Taylor, J., _The Devil's Pulpit_, ii., 297.
[668] P. 344.
[669] Courtney, Miss M. L., _Cornish Feasts and Folklore_, p. 175.
[670] Among the Maoris potent powers were supposed to reside in the
human eye. "When a warrior slew a chief, he immediately
gouged out his eyes and swallowed them, the _atua tonga_, or
divinity, being supposed to reside in that organ; thus he not
only killed the body, but also possessed himself of the soul
of his enemy, and consequently the more chiefs he slew, the
greater did his divinity become."--Taylor, R., _Te Ika A
Maui, or New Zealand and its Inhabitants_.
[671] _Mykenæ_, p. 77.
[672] B.M., _Guide to the Early Iron Age_, p. 107.
[673] _Archaic Sculpturings_, p. 23.
[674] _Britannia Antiquissima_, p. 50.
[675] Coles, F. R., _The Motes of Kirkcudbrightshire_, p. 151.
[676] Johnson, W., _Byways_, p. 195.
[677] _Lyonesse, a Handbook for the Isles of Scilly_, p. 70.
[678] The Cambridgeshire Comberton is situated on the Bourn brook:
there is also a Great and Little Comberton underlying Bredon
Hill in the Pershore district of Worcester.
[679] The term "Bluestone" in the West of England meant _holy
stone_.
[680] Wilson, J. G., _Imperial Gazetteer_.
[681] On the tip-top of Highgate Hill is now standing an
_Englefield_ House immediately adjacent to an _Angel_ Inn.
[682] _Lyonesse_, p. 41.
[683] _Ibid._, p. 39.
[684] _Ibid._, p. 39.
[685] _Ibid._, p. 79.
[686] _Ibid._, p. 78.
[687] P. 112.
[688] Writing _not_ in connection with either Monglow or
Camperdizil Miss Gordon observes: "We may conjure up the
scene where the watery stretches reflected in molten gold the
'pillars of fire' symbolising the presence of God; we seem to
behold the reverend forms of the white clad Druids revolving
in the mystic 'Deasil' dance from East to West around the
glowing pile, and so following the course of the Sun, the
image of the Deity".--_Prehistoric London_, p. 72.
[689] Eckenstein, L., _Comp. St. Nursery Rhymes_, p. 97.
[690] P. 98.
[691] Skeat believed _pun_ meant something _punched_ out of shape.
Is it not more probably connected with the Hebrew _pun_
meaning _dubious_?